Pow! Right Between the Eyes E-Book

Andy Nulman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 285

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Pow! Radical new methods for reaching jaded, cynical consumers Put simply, when it comes to your business, your new idea, even yourself, this book can be the difference between a "Who cares?" and a "Holy cow!" Business, both big and small, is in desperate need of new ways to inspire bored and cynical consumers who have grown weary of the same old song and dance. In today's information economy, it doesn't matter how many people you reach, but how much attention they pay. And the best way to get attention is with the powerful, but largely misunderstood, element of surprise. Pow! Enter Andy Nulman with the art of surprise marketing. An explosive new outlook, surprise marketing solidifies the bond between you and your customers like nothing else, and keeps them coming back for more by providing a continuous flow of what they never expected. Pow! Right Between the Eyes reveals the secrets, theories, and tactics of surprise marketing, and wields outrageous real-world examples (and even more outrageous tools like "The Lubricant to Yes" and "Euphoric Shock") to help expand the boundaries of the extreme and create a bigger bang for bigger profits. On his quest to unlock the secret of why some things knock your socks off and others put you to sleep, Nulman shares insights from director Alfred Hitchcock, designer Philippe Starck, playwright David Mamet, Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane, Harvard psychologists, songwriters, bloggers, and even the inventor of Pirate Booty snack chips. And he shows how today's smartest companies are winning big with surprises stories like: * How Oprah's shocking announcement that "Everybody gets a car!" sent her Web site traffic up 800% and helped the Pontiac G6 outsell its competitors by 20% * How Target earns $7 billion a year in free publicity with stunts like a floating temporary store in New York's Hudson River or putting on a vertical fashion show where acrobat models walked down the side of Rockefeller Center * How Bear Naked Granola reversed the trick-or-treat tradition by sending costumed street teams door-to-door to give away granola samples on Halloween Andy Nulman is a wildly-successful businessman and even wilder public speaker who first learned the power of surprise working with Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, and many other comedians as the cofounder and CEO of the Just For Laughs Festival, the world's largest comedy event. His book shares hilarious and effective surprise promotions that he himself dreamed up for the event and in his current position as cofounder, President, and CMO of Airborne Mobile, which brings brands like Maxim, Family Guy, and the NFL to the mobile media world. Don't forget to read the book's two forewords by the legendary John Cleese and CBS Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson. Surprising choices for a business book? Well...what did you expect?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

FOREWORD BY CRAIG FERGUSON

10 Rather Surprising Things You Should Know About Me Before Reading This Book

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 - Why Surprise Is Crucial

The Basis of All Great Entertainment

The Root of All Sports

The Key to Fashion

The Difference in Politics

The Underlying Spirit of Web 2.0

The “Hot” in Hotels

CHAPTER 2 - What Is This Thing Called Surprise?

CHAPTER 3 - What Surprise Ain’t

CHAPTER 4 - All Powerful? Almighty? Almost. The Surprising Surprise Conundrum

CHAPTER 5 - Shock 101

CHAPTER 6 - Let’s Hear It for the Surprise Theory Quartet!

1. Everyone’s a Kid in Disneyland

2. Balls Beat Brains, Balls Beat Budgets

3. Little Things Mean A Lot

4. Sometimes, There Is No Reason

CHAPTER 7 - The Art of the Business of Creating Surprise

Tactic 1: Wear Virgin Contact Lenses

Tactic 2: Shock and AHH. . .

Tactic 3: Words Are Important

Tactic 4: Rally Against Stereotypes

Tactic 5: Look In The Rearview Mirror

Tactic 6: Time-Bombing

Tactic 7: Business Stupidity

Tactic 8: A Piece of The Puzzle

Tactic 9: Taking Things Out of Context

CHAPTER 8 - The Tomorrow of Surprise

EPILOGUE

AFTERWORD BY DAVID ALLEN

Notes

About the Author

Index

Praise for Pow! Right Between the Eyes!

“Great comedians call it ‘the punch line,’ where reality is shattered with brilliance and wit. When the punch line comes to marketing, Andy Nulman calls it a surprise—and he’samasteratit. Readthisbook,andharness the power of Pow! in your business life.”

—Tim Sanders, author, The Likeability Factor

“Well worth reading. Pow! is a fun and practical book with a wealth of stories and examples to definitely put you in a ‘surprise someone’ mindset. For example, when Andy shows us his ‘balls,’ it is done in a surprisingly tasteful way.”

—Roger von Oech, author, A Whack on the Side of the Head

“I’ve always said: Be interesting, or be invisible. Andy teaches you how to start great word of mouth by surprising, delighting, and inspiring people to talk. You need this book!”

—Andy Sernovitz, author, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking

“This book shows how to use the element of surprise to seize people’s attention and shake up conventional mindsets, indispensable steps for anyone who wants to change the way they do business...or change the world.”

—David Bornstein, author, How To Change The World

“In 30 years of coaching the best performers in the world, I found few that used both sides of their brain. Andy Nulman does! Now his rare, unique, and outrageous insights in Pow! will give you an edge over the competition.”

—Jim Fannin, “Change Your Life” coach; author, The S.C.O.R.E. System

“Learning to implement surprise into your business model will not onlyinfluence your bottom line, but it will also have a profound side effecton your customers by opening the door to wonder, joy, and glee. AndyNulman shows you how to do this and more in Pow! Right Between theEyes!”

—Loretta LaRoche, author, speaker, and PBS star

“Thoroughly fun to read, Andy Nulman’s Pow! surgically implants the concept of strategic surprise into your mind like a ticking time-bomb. Before you know it, you’ll be layering surprises into your work all the time. For people whose earning power can be enhanced by bringing sudden delight to others, this book is a must. This includes anyone in business, design or marketing ... and ambitious strippers.”

—Len Blum, screenwriter, “Private Parts,” “The Pink Panther,” and yoga instructor

“The message you’ll get within these pages: doing things in business that surprise and delight consumers creates a multitude of chain reactions that keep them engaged, entertained, thinking, talking about you and—most importantly—buying. Pow! Right Between the Eyes shows you how to ride the wave of sheer terror... and get a suntan. Make no mistake about it, adding surprise into your marketing mix isn’t a shtick or stunt, it’s a business imperative in this highly saturated media landscape.”

—Mitch Joel, president, Twist Image and author of Six Pixels of Separation

Copyright © 2009 by Andy Nulman. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Nulman, Andy.

Pow! right between the eyes: profiting from the power of surprise / Andy Nulman. p. cm.

Includes index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-44384-2

1. Marketing. I. Title.

HF5415.N82 2009

658.8—dc22

2008036335

For Fitzy and The Sweet,but especially for Ski

Acknowledgments

Here’s How a Book Is Born

In July 2006, marketing maven Mitch Joel asked me if I would be interested in presenting a case study at an event called CaseCamp. Instead of the standard, traditional case study model of “listen to what I’ve done,” the one I would agree to present would be more like “listen to what I want to do,” and focus on this curious theory that had been kicking around the back of my mind for about five years. So once again going against the grain, I presented a case for the power of Surprise, particularly in marketing. I swear on my life these were my blustery introductory words on that fateful day:

“Yes, I am presenting a case study...but it’s a case study about a book that has not yet been written. And I am the client. Actually, it’s about more than a mere book. It’s about a concept that could change the face of consumer marketing as we now know it. A concept that—if accepted—could change my entire career. Otherwise, why spend the time writing it?”

Reaction to the concept that day was upbeat and positive, so after spending the summer researching the subject, I launched my “Pow! Right Between the Eyes!” blog in October to take it many steps further.

Over the Christmas holidays that year, I read, and was enamored with, Andy Sernovitz’s book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, and said so a few times in the aforementioned blog. Sernovitz reached out to me by email to say thanks, I returned the reach via phone, and we became fast friends.

A little over a year later, in late January of 2008, we two Andys finally met face-to-face at the Shop.org conference in Orlando, where we were both keynoting. Over a late afternoon coffee, he mentioned that “Pow!” really should become a book, and gave me the names of two agents to contact to help make it so.

I called both upon my return home. One, the amazing Bill Gladstone of Waterside Productions, called back within five minutes; the other... well, I’m still waiting. After my spirited, “express-elevator pitch,” Bill enthused, “I can sell this book!” and passed me over to his colleague Ming Russell, whose job it was to get me in shape to do so. Over the next month, Ming put me through a Pow!-prep boot camp, a torturous process that made the actual writing of this volume a cakewalk in comparison. On Friday, April 11, a mere 10 weeks after we first spoke, Bill lived up to his initial, excited words and confirmed the news as I walked off the stage from a speech to Wal-Mart: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., publisher had agreed to pick up the book. Pow! indeed.

Wiley’s editorial tag-team of Shannon Vargo and Jessica Langan-Peck maintained the frenetic pace by requesting a final manuscript by August 1. Goodbye nights and weekends, hello SpellCheck! Their belief in (and boundless enthusiasm for) the project made the double-time tempo worthwhile. Together, we shared countless emails and voicemails, frantic phone calls where I tried to fit too many words into too few minutes, and live face-to-face visits where I met, and tried not to overwhelm, other dedicated Wiley-ites like Matt Holt, Christine Kim, Peter Knapp, Lauren Freestone, and Beth Zipko.

So cradle the volume you hold in your hands with tenderness and care; a lot of hard work and great people made it possible. Without them, I am nothing. And without the following folks, I’m even less, so thunderous thanks also go out to:

—My loving and supportive family, most notably my wife Lynn and my sons Aidan Foster and Hayes Brody, my dad Norman and late mom Carol, as well as Nancy and Steven Krychman, Stuart Nulman, Faigie Stark, and Seymour Coviensky, Howard and Joanne Harris, Gail and Henry Baragar, Barry Kirstein and Nicole Bertrand, Ali Kirstein, Hailey and Greggy Krychman, Justin and Laura Harris, and of course, my dogs Shaydee and Rawqui. Special props to Aidan for helping me research some of the more thorny parts of this book (but I’m still waiting for the Rabbis...).

—Brilliant business partners and faithful friends like Garner Bornstein, Gilbert Rozon, Bruce Hills, and Dean Mac-Donald.

—Tim Barnard, whose counterculture eye-popping marking-up of walls, comic books, t-shirts, snowboards, and sneakers made him the ideal visual accompaniment for this book.

—Mark Fortier, who goes way beyond the title and responsibilities of the term “publicist,” my longtime National Speakers Bureau (NSB) speaking agents Theresa Beenken and Perry Goldsmith, who stuck with me through the toughest of hell gigs, and my newest speaking agent, he of much hard and great advice, Tom Neilssen of the BrightSight Group.

—The thousands of FOPs (Friends of Pow!) who have supported me and the power of Surprise via my blog posts and Twitter tweets.

—Scott Brooks, whose “you can never be too over-the-top” designs for my blog suddenly found themselves inspiring this book’s front cover. Add to this his collaboration on all my videos and you know why Brooksie is Pow!’s unsung artistic MVP.

—Other creative collaborators like CommerceTel’s Dennis Becker and Chris McGibbon; Wave Generation’s Mike Elman; pop artist Steve Kaufman and his manager Barry Steinberg; the smartest man in the world, Saul Colt; and my faithful assistant, Nancy Essebag.

—The artists and musicians and authors that color my imagination and inflate my soul.

—Business-book writers likeTom Peters, Roger von Oech, Tim Sanders, Seth Godin, Al Ries, Jack Trout, Malcolm Glad-well, Jim Collins, Dan Pink, Douglas Rushkoff, Chip Heath, and Dan Heath, whom I have long admired and have tried hard to live up to within these pages.

—The fashion designers who continually provide the packaging, particularly Sal and Rosie Parasuco, Ida Mirijello and Linda DelPercio at Parasuco; Dig P.R.’s Susanne Weinberg and Strellson’s Mark Altow; and of course, the Marcs—Marc Fernandez and Marc Ecko himself at Ecko Unltd.

—The spirit of creativity, that sprite that somehow always manages to find me when I am in need of it most.

—Finally, and most importantly: You. Together, we are a team.

So let me close this off with the exact same words I prophetically used to close off that fabled case study way back when:

“Surprise! I’m done ...

... or perhaps, I’m just getting started.”

And now, on with the show!

FOREWORD BY JOHN CLEESE

The Value of Surprise

John Cleese is one of the founding members of the legendary Monty Python’s Flying Circus and is modestly renowned as a God in the comedy, film, and television worlds.

Throughout my lengthy and illustrious career, from the beginning of Monty Python to the collapse of the communist system, I have learned the importance and value of surprise.

I once went to bed with the Duke of Kent.

There! You see what I mean? You were surprised by learning that I had screwed his Grace, and so I got your attention. (I no doubt got the Duke of Kent’s attention even more.)

Another example:

Booo!!

See? It’s an old trick but it works, especially in the world of marketing. Where nobody—nobody—has the slightest idea what they’re talking about. (Incidentally, they have absolutely no idea that they have no idea what they’re talking about. This is what makes them sound so convincing.)

My arm just fell off!!!!

Gotcha again!

To sum up, I think I can safely say that in examining the modern-day chronicles of surprise, there is perhaps no surprise greater than the fact that I actually agreed to provide a foreword to this book.

And with it, I have now officially paid off that lingering poker debt, and wish you an enjoyable read. Andy Nulman is not the slightest bit tall, but he makes me laugh. I like him. It will be a surprise to me if you don’t. So buy this book. Or you will die.

FOREWORD BY CRAIG FERGUSON

This Surprisiness of Andy Nulman

Craig Ferguson is an actor, screenwriter, novelist, and comedian,and the host of CBS’ Late Late Show.

Andy has a steel-trap commercial mind. He is bright, sharp, and creative. He always has five or six suggestions on any scenario. He has proven to the world, and certainly to me, that he is nothing short of a business genius.

Yet anybody who knows him will tell you that the most surprising thing about Andy is the way he dresses. I have seen him in outfits that range from “transvestite circus performer in a gangster rap video” to what can only be described as “cartoon woodland creature.” Why, even though he must be getting close to 50 by now, does he dress so flamboyantly, so unconventionally?

Now you must know I am not a fashion queen; I very rarely notice what other people are wearing. It’s just not my thing. I couldn’t tell you with any degree of accuracy the color of the underpants I am wearing right now. The point I am trying to make is that I know only one single person in the world open to this kind of scrutiny and it’s Andy. He forces you into it. He’s just so damned eye-catching. The odd thing is that Andy doesn’t see his sartorial eccentricity at all, and I run the risk of hurting his feelings by even mentioning it. But I think it is relevant to the book that you now have in your hands.

Andy is that rare thing in this world—courageous. He is brave to the point of utter foolhardiness as he proves day in and day out, sometimes just with his choice of socks or shirt. He doesn’t really entertain the thought of failure, or if he does, he looks on it as a necessary piece of information that he needed to get where he wanted to go.

Of course there may be a darker more Machiavellian reason for Andy’s costumes. He might want to trick people into underestimating him.

Trust me, that would be a big mistake.

10 Rather Surprising Things You Should Know About Me Before Reading This Book

• First of all, and perhaps most importantly for this book, I walk the talk. Not only have I been Surprise marketing for years, way before the term was even coined, but everything about me screams different and unexpected—the way I dress, the jewelry I wear, the manner in which I talk, the car I drive, and the way I act (even the way I spell Surprise, which is always capitalized out of respect). Some journalist once labeled me “A Somewhat Smarter Smart-Ass,” which I didn’t mind then, and still don’t; another called me “The 3D Kid” (for Does Things Differently). These days, friends and family give me pseudo-serious nicknames like “The Prince of Pow!” and “Mister Surprise.” I can think of a lot worse things to be called.

• On a whim at the age of 16, I answered an ad to work in the sports section of a newspaper called The Sunday Express. A week later, I wrote my first article about the rockstar rage-du-jour at the time, Peter Frampton. A year later, I was named entertainment editor of the paper, and took on the job of promotion manager six months after that. I was well on my way to a life in journalism until I was fired at the age of 23 after throwing a glass of red wine at my white-sweatered boss (I swear it was in self defense! He cut my tie first!). In retrospect, I owe my life to that glass of wine.

• Laughter is not just the best medicine, but for 15 years as CEO of the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, it was my sustenance. It was while building the world’s largest humor event that I learned the power of Surprise, and saw it molded like sculptor’s clay by the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, Jim Carrey, Drew Carey, Chris Rock, Ray Romano, John Cleese, William Shatner, Craig Ferguson, and dozens more. Running a comedy event gave me the license to experiment like a mad scientist, and the fallback excuse of “Just kidding!” when I went too far. It was there that I was able to unobtrusively try my hand at producing and writing television shows, directing live shows, and selling everything from multi-million-dollar sponsorships to multi-million-dollar TV series to ten-buck t-shirts.

• Leaving a posh, globe-trotting position at Just For Laughs after its best year ever seemed foolish, especially to start up a mobile media /entertainment company called Airborne Entertainment immediately after the dotcom bust. Most people didn’t give the company a year to live, but five tough ones later, working with giants like Verizon Wireless, Sprint, AT&T, Disney, HBO, and Fox, my partner and I sold it to a Japanese concern for over $100 million. If I were still a journalist, perhaps I’d be lucky enough to write about this deal. Once again, thank you glass of wine!

• Outgoing? Well, somewhat. Somewhat of a paradox, I’d say. I’m okay one-on-one, at my most comfortable on stage in front of crowds as large as 6,000...but suck at parties. Some are party animals; I’m a party vegetable. For some reason, I’d rather go to the dentist than to a party.

• When I was a kid, my first career goal was to be a garbage man. Seriously. I was about three-and-a-half years old and looking out from my bedroom window on Westbury Street one night, I saw these guys making a complete racket, throwing large cans around at random, and jumping on-and-off of a moving truck. “What a job!” I remember thinking. “Where do I sign up?”

• My most beloved possessions include my ever-expanding wild wardrobe, my music library (including Edison cylinders, 78s, LPs, cassettes, 8-track tapes, CDs, MP3s, and 100 45s locked in a 1959 Wurlitzer jukebox), my pop art collection (with works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sol LeWit, Damien Hirst, Ron English, Chuck Close, Salvador Dali, Julien Opie, Patrick Hughes, and Jean-Michel Basquiat), and an assortment of rare, first-edition books.

• Every now and then, I let my temper get the best of me. Volcanic in nature, it got the worst of me one summer at Just For Laughs when I trashed my entire office—desk, bookshelves, windows, coffee cups—with a baseball bat. Diane Shatz, my assistant at the time, hid under her desk to escape the flying shrapnel. I’m not necessarily proud of that outburst, but it does make a good story. And that chipped, gnarled bat still sits beside my desk...just in case.

• Though far from the world’s greatest athlete, I work out incessantly, play hockey both weekly and weakly (at the most masochistic of positions, goaltender), and spend my Christmas holidays snowboarding in the west. I have a custom-painted goalie mask (a replica of a famous Stuart Davis mural), a custom-painted snowboard helmet (a laughing, broken skull with gooey brain matter pouring out of the cracks), and select my workout wear to match one of the eight different pairs of training shoes I have. What’s a sport without the proper accompanying outfits?

• One of my few vices in life is my obsessive love of Cool Whip (particularly Cool Whip Light, which has only 35 calories in three heaping tablespoons!), Kraft’s nondairy, neosynthetic, cloud-like whipped topping. I put it on just about everything, even resort to eating it out of the tub, and as an added bonus, let my dogs Shaydee and Rawqui lick the spoon when I’m done. Other than this, I eat pretty healthily. Other vices include coffee, sunglasses, really good red wine, and jewelry.

PROLOGUE

Surprise Drives It Home

“Everybody gets a car!”

In the annals of Surprise marketing (the bulk of which is comprised by the book you are currently holding), those four words rank right up there with Neil Armstrong’s symbolic, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” or Ronald Reagan’s passionate plea, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

“Everybody gets a car!”

Shrieked on afternoon TV by Oprah Winfrey on Monday, September 13, 2004, the words served to draw the proverbial “line in the sand,” the division of “what came before” and “what came after.” To Surprise marketers—the bold, the few—it was the end of BC and the start of AD.

“Everybody gets a car!”

The divine Miss O had done some crazy stuff before (my fave by far saw her symbolize her weight loss by hauling out a Radio Flyer wagon filled with 67 pounds of gooey pink fat), but this one was about to take the cake. There were 276 people in the audience, there to celebrate her wildly successful show’s nineteenth anniversary. Some had waited more than five years on a long, long list for their chance to breathe the same air as Oprah, and little did they know when they sat down under the hot Harpo Studio lights that day how well worth it their wait was.

The audience was not there randomly. Each was chosen due to a sob story that they, their friends, or their family had written about their desperate need for a new car. As reported by the Associated Press, one hopeful bemoaned that her car looked “like she got into a gunfight”; another couple talked of driving two vehicles with a combined total of over 400,000 miles. These folks didn’t just need a car, they needed a miracle.

And Oprah delivered one...at first, for 11 tremulous audience members she called up on stage. Each one was handed the keys to a spanking new Pontiac G6, worth a whopping $28,000. Wild applause was followed by a bit of trepidation as the twelfth and final car’s winner was to be decided by lottery. Every one of the remaining 265 anxious fans was given a gift box. One of these boxes contained the keys to the remaining G6.

But upon opening the boxes, the audience got the Surprise of their lives. Every box had a set of keys. And thus...

“Everybody gets a car!”

Pandemonium ensued as Oprah repeated the catchphrase over and over again—jumping up and down Tom Cruise-like, for emphasis—to convince her faithful that pinches were not necessary. Yes, this was indeed real. Free cars, donated by the GM brand, a nineteenth anniversary present from Oprah.

The stunned audience didn’t just react or overreact, they convulsed. They undulated and writhed. They collapsed. They followed Oprah en masse as if she were Moses as she parted the studio doors and led them to the promised land of the parking lot to claim their Pontiacs, each resplendent with a giant red bow.

Two-hundred and seventy-six ecstatic people and one beaming host. Such is the power of a great Surprise.

But it didn’t end there.

The show, appropriately titled “Wildest Dreams,” unleashed a maelstrom of attention. According to comScore Networks, a marketing intelligence firm, the Pontiac giveaway drew 600,000 unique American visitors to Oprah.com on Tuesday, September 14, 2004 alone, an increase of more than 800 percent, versus the previous four Tuesdays. Pontiac. com enjoyed a similar jump in visits, up more than 600 percent. More than 48 hours after the show aired, the term “Pontiac G6” was still one of the most popular search items on Google. Within two weeks, the company had achieved an astonishing 87 percent awareness among adults for the G6.

The event’s media impact was measured by product placement evaluator iTVX to be equivalent to that of 75 30-second network spots, which the company valued at over $5 million. Even better was that the G6 quickly outsold its nearest competitive vehicle, Ford’s 500, by about 20 percent.

Mark-Hans Richer, Pontiac’s Marketing Director at the time, shared in the euphoria, and said of the exploit: “It provided a rare chance to fully integrate advertising, product placement, promotion and public relations activities into a single event that created instant, high-impact buzz across America.”1 Surprise conquers a nation.

But wait, there’s more.

Nine months later, at the esteemed Cannes Lions d’Or international advertising awards, the Pontiac giveaway went beyond its “Wildest Dreams” and was bestowed with a Golden Media Lion, the event’s most prestigious honor. Out of 75 countries participating, this was the only U.S. win. The Pontiac Giveaway was now a global story, a pop-culture phenomenon. “Everybody gets a car!” became part of the common lexicon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... there was also the perfunctory whining and moaning backlash: “Some poor folks were hit with $7,000 tax bills they couldn’t pay!” was the gossip that permeated the Internet. (Reports vary; the aforementioned AP story said that “Pontiac will pay for the taxes and the customizing of the cars.”) The point is that here we are, five years later, and still talking about it. Say “Pontiac Giveaway” or “Everybody gets a car!” and people know what you mean.

That’s the power of a great Surprise.

But there’s more still.

As Oprah herself said to describe her bellwether nineteenth “Wildest Dream” season: “This year, no dream is too wild, no Surprise too impossible to pull off.”

These days, given her ABC Big Give prime time legacy, her “My Favorite Things” product giveaway orgy shows, and her constant dedication to delivering eye-poppers, Oprah reigns as the queen of the Surprise stunt. But with the Pontiac Giveaway, she showed that Surprise can also be a valid marketing tool, crossing over from a world of mere curiosity to one of metered Return on Investment (ROI). Gotta hand it to Oprah; she gave Surprise marketing its first jolt of legitimacy.

This book provides it with its second.

Hang on—and enjoy the ride.

CHAPTER 1

Why Surprise Is Crucial

Three dozen virginal seraphim angels are busy spraying their throats, frantically lining up in choir formation. An army of sweaty Dizzy Gillespies are huffing and puffing their bulbous cheeks, readying for a simultaneous blast of their strangely bent trumpets. The ancient Chinese firework maestro delicately places his bony finger on the ignition switch, itching to flick it forward and light up the skies with explosive rocket color.

Impatiently, they await the triggering event for their synchronized actions—the revelation of this book’s“Big Statement.” So without any further ado...

The element of Surpriseis the most important aspectin contemporary business.

There—I said it. And now, for the next 200 pages or so, I have to live up to it.

(Uh, angels and company, it’s been a pleasure working with you. Your checks are waiting in the dressing rooms. You can all go home now... Thank you.)

My quest begins murkily, focusing on the fog that’s currently engulfing us. No, it’s not the residue of the aforementioned pyrotechnics; it’s the thickening cloud of marketing messages we are faced with on a daily basis. Too many messages coming at us in too many places and in too many ways: on TV, radio, in print, and magazines; on billboards, buses, taxis, and racecars. Embedded on web pages, appended to emails and text messages when the emails and text messages themselves aren’t ads. Disguised as entertainment and news. Through our front door, over our heads, on sidewalks, and on rooftops. Never mind “ad creep”—this is ad infinitum.

This deluge of messages would be easier to accept if they were clever or inspiring, but sadly, they are not. Most of them are downright boring. The end result is a yawn-inducing, decreasingly effective, peasoup-esque haze.

So, back to the “Big Statement.” The marketing message blur, while imposing, is not impenetrable. There indeed exists a beacon powerful enough to slice right through it: the dazzling, halogen-like element of Surprise.

While it recalls the frivolity of birthday parties and the silliness of practical jokes, Surprise is far from superficial. In fact, it is an essential tool that can help you sell anything—your product, your service, even yourself. (Yup, it’s as effective in building relationships as it is in building brands, but more on that later.)

Surprise is an ultraimportant form of differentiation. You never really look for it; it finds you. “The moments we enjoy take us by Surprise,” said the great anthropologist Ashley Montagu. “It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.”1 Once it seizes, Surprise helps influence decisions, and is often the deciding factor in someone choosing you over the other guy. But until now, its potential in business has remained relatively untapped.

The perfunctory Google search on Surprise yields an astonishing 159 million hits; page after page of links to something having to do with the good word. While delightful, eye-opening, and uplifting, they seem to be miles away from our corporate cause. For instance:

Surprise.com brings you “hand-picked gifts from stores across the web.”

There are 32 different international sites for “Kinder-Surprise,” the chocolate egg with the toy inside (make sure you chew before you swallow, kids!).

You can find loads of books on the subject, almost all for children, ranging from Purim Surprise by Lesley Simpson to Harriet Ziefert’s Surprise! (Yeah I know; not much of a range . . .)

Listen to music by legends like Paul Simon (the album Surprise) and Radiohead (the “No Surprises” video), or visit the home pages of unknown bands like To My Surprise, Donner Surprise Party, and My Second Surprise, or indie labels like Surprise Attack Records.

You can drown in the cesspool of celebrity gossip(“Surprise! Angelina is preggers!”).

Shop at home with Surprise, the French, Avon-like, family fashion company.

There are countless mentions of Surprise visits, parties, wins, losses, appearances, talks, and comebacks.

You can discover some very interesting ways to “Surprise” your woman or man (or both).

Bone up on your history by learning about the American tradition of the October Surprise (a news event, either random or conspiratorially preplanned, with the potential to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the presidency), or the 13 ships of the Royal British Navy named the HMS Surprise.

And of course, there’s everything you would ever want to know about Surprise, Arizona, a safe little town (only one murder per year on average) with 85,914 residents (including 11 registered sex offenders), where the most common job is construction for males and health care for females, and where the average new single-family home will set you back $159,200. It may not be Manhattan, but Surprise, Arizona is the spiritual homeland of this book (and is a way nicer town than Success, Missouri or Salesville, Ohio).

You’d think that there would be a more reverential treatment of Surprise among the 159 million hits, given the concept’s wide-reaching heritage and power. Just look around you. Like Wi-fi, Surprise may be difficult to see, but it is impossible to ignore. In spite of its rather anemic showing on Google, here is where we’ll let Surprise really flex its muscles by showing that it is all the following, and more:

The Basis of All Great Entertainment

Think of Surprise endings in classic films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (he’s his mom!), Citizen Kane (it’s a sled!), Planet of the Apes (it’s New York!), Soylent Green (it’s us!), and Chinatown (she’s the sister and the daughter!). Or more recently, The Empire Strikes Back (he’s his dad!), The Crying Game (she’s a he!), The Sixth Sense (he’s dead!), and Memento (it’s . . . he’s . . . uh, frankly I’m still trying to figure it out). Stop me now, because I could go on and spoil movie endings for pages!

On the smaller screen, there’s the TV cliffhangers like Dallas’s season-ending, “Who Shot J.R.?” episode, its Simpsons spoof, “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”, or the ever-present twists and turns of shows like 24, Deal Or No Deal, and Survivor.

On the bookshelves, Surprise endings are found in just about anything by Stephen King, Ayn Rand, or my favorite, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22